From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter from John V. Pugh of Rudge Whitworth regarding a wheel creak issue on an Austro-Daimler car.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 106\4\ scan0021 | |
| Date | 24th May 1922 | |
| R R.{Sir Henry Royce} 235 a (400 T) (S.C. 535. 15-2-16) G.{Mr Griffiths - Chief Accountant / Mr Gnapp} 1546. COPY. RUDGE WHITWORTH LIMITED. COVENTRY. JVP/F.{Mr Friese} 24th May, 1922. Just after you telephoned me on Monday I saw Mr. Daniell and told him what I had said, viz., that I personally had never heard or experienced the creak in question although I didn't, of course, dispute its existence. I told him there was a creak on my Car, the origin of which I hadn't discovered but which I supposed might be due to a slightly loose mudguard. Mr. Daniell said he could recognise if it was a wheel creak and we went out on it, and he so diagnosed it. All four wheels of the Car were then jacked up and each one tried with a spanner and a two pounds steel hammer. One front refused to move and was evidently tight enough - the other three screwed up slightly. I think only the two back wheels were creaking but it is difficult to be sure. This tightening cured all but one wheel which continued to creak. We then jacked the Car up again, oiled the locknut both on cone seat and on the thread and hammered it up as before noticing that it went about another quarter of a revolution and it has not creaked since; the Car has done an additional 200 K/m.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore} This Car is a new Austro-Daimler six cylinder that I have had about a couple of months and have done over 5,000 K/m.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore} on it without any attention to the wheels whatever. These wheels were put on by the Body Maker and I don't know how carefully or otherwise he put them on or whether he took the trouble to read our instructions first. The car is rather an interesting machine - can touch 120 K/m.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore} and except putting oil in the engine, the petrol in the tank and water in the radiator and screwing up the greasers on the spring shackles, nothing whatever has been done to the Car except to remove some mechanical defects in a Robert Bosch Hooter. Returning to wheel creak; the matter is, of course, very important from our point of view, and I should like Mr. Daniell to go over to France to see it. Yours faithfully, (Sgd). John V.{VIENNA} Pugh. | ||